That real estate is the home of my ancestral tailgate. Ah well. The plans look very nice, though, and should help the program steady itself as a respectable one (or better!). More at UM Hoops.

Yes yes yes maybe? 100 cocktails to Yostal, who gets a question in to Chris Brown at EDSBS and extracts a thousand or so words on Michigan from one of college football's most interesting bloggers—apparently Brown's article on Tressel was specifically mentioned by the man himself on a radio appearance! Yostal's question has to do with Michigan's attempt to shoehorn both Tate Forcier and Denard Robinson into useful roles on the field. Brown:

I think the winds are changing, and a two-quarterback system is quite possible. At its best you are likely to have the system Florida used to win the 2006 title: a starting quarterback in charge of most of the offense (Chris Leak), and a second guy with special abilities for whom a package is installed (then-freshman Tim Tebow). This example has now been made universal throughout football under the nauseatingly overused rubric, “the wildcat.” (Had “wildcat” been around in 2006 think of all of the puns Dan Shanoff could have used to describe how Meyer used his young talent.) The reason that works though is because you choose a starting quarterback for one set of skills (passing, reading the defense, making checks, accuracy, some athleticism, etc) but another guy opens up a new dimension because of their running ability, and the spread with a mobile guy gives the offense certain numerical advantages it doesn’t get with an immobile quarterback.

Read or die. /diddy.

Do we care about this? The Detroit News has an article about how a bunch of Michigan coaches have loans from the Bank of Ann Arbor, which is a potential conflict of interest for Bank of Ann Arbor founder Bill Martin:

"I don't suggest banks to any coach," he said. "I don't ever get involved in their financial affairs in any way, shape or form. I believe it would be a conflict of interest (to do so)."

But Martin also acknowledged that now that he is aware of the loans, it does create a conflict.

"Now that I know, I don't like it necessarily," he said. "When you don't know, you don't have a conflict."

This contradicts an earlier statement by Martin. Is this of interest to anyone other than the Bank of Ann Arbor corporate board? I'm thinking not so much.

The scene of the crime. Johnny Sears (Yes That Johnny Sears), now a senior, makes his return to Michigan Stadium tomorrow. Jokes aside, and there is plenty of material, it sounds like Sears has come a long way from the events that precipitated his dismissal:

“I was on the practice squad on my junior college. I didn’t even get to play. Sometimes by myself I thought like, ‘Is it worth it?’ but then I felt like, ‘OK I really want to play football.’ That’s my love. It’s my escape from things. This is what I love to do so I just wanted to make sure I could do that.”

And okay, yes, it is a little funny that Sears ended up on a JUCO's practice squad after starting The Horror. Funny in a sad clown way. When you're discussing the clunky end of the Carr era, "started sophomore DB who had never played varsity football before he got an offer and couldn't crack a JUCO 2-deep after he left because he seemed like the best option" should be somewhere on the list.

"The only time I really see [Florida] lose kids is because kids want to play in a pro-style offense," Kiffin said. "It’s such a great place to play, and they do such a good job of coaching. But you see some kids that don’t want to play in that system because a lot of times it hurts them going to the next level for their draft status."

Three spread offense receivers (Crabtree, Missouri's Jeremy Maclin, and Florida's Percy Harvin) were taken in the first round of last year's draft. The only tight end taken in the first round (Oklahoma State's Brandon Pettigrew) came from a spread offense.

Both Harvin and Louis Murphy, from Florida's very spread offense, started on opening day for their teams and both caught touchdown passes.

Sam Bradford was predicted to be a top ten pick had he come out last year and is the top quarterback prospect for 2010. He plays in a spread offense in Oklahoma.

Michigan right guard Dave Moosman suffered a dislocated shoulder against Notre Dame and may miss two weeks. Starting right tackle Mark Huyge moved to Moosman's spot and Perry Dorrestein filled in for Huyge at the end of last week's game. Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez is uncertain about this week's starting plans with Wauseon redshirt freshman Elliott Mealer one of three others being considered.

I'm hoping one of the redshirt freshman breaks through for the long term, but it sounds like it'll be someone more veteran. AA.com says junior John Ferrara is likely to be the guy.

KOVAAAAAAAAACS. A fair amount of attention has been paid to Jordan Kovacs this week, and why not? He's only an unrecruited walk-on who played much of the second half against Notre Dame and did not end up plastered on the bottom of Michael Floyd's foot. Kovacs actually had to try out twice because the first time he tried to sign up he had serious knee issues the athletic department didn't want to volunteer to fix. He got the surgery himself, tried out, made the team, and took a valuable lesson from the whole thing:

"I said I'm never going to come back to the training room," he said. "I'll have to be dying."

"Having an individual participate in our football program and then continue on is one of the most important aspects we have in this program at any coaching level, and having someone like Lou is even more gratifying because we like to have young men like him stay on in coaching."

At fullback they have a versatile fullback who plays fullback in Hawken who plays fullback, but he moves around a lot, giving them a lot of the versatility along with the multiple tight ends they have because they do play three of them.

Bloated, meandering, repetitive, full of fail. A sentence or a life in coaching? Zing!

Wow the Freepress is now using it's Detroit News wing to go after Martin and R-Rod. What the .... I mean really is that the kind of story they should be focused on just after such a huge ND upset and going into a local matchup with Eastern.

Perhaps, Ron English also uses the Bank creating yet another conflict of interest when Martin threatens to pull his loan if there was an upset this weekend.

Great article on the demise of Tressel ball, but I do think it is a little early to make that statement.

I do take issue with the statement that Forcier is "No where near the talent that Pryor is". Pryor is clearly better at running, but what about the other factors that align to make up talent. Intelligence is probably the biggest differentiator and you only need to look to Pryor's comments about Michael Vick to gage his intelligence. I also, not enough evidence to compare, believe that Forcier is extremely accurate on the run. I don't watch enough of Pryor to know if he's better, but "no where near" seems like a stretch.

is a walking, talking advertisement for "Don't let your mouth write checks your body can't cover." Urban Meyer is going to put the pedal to the metal for 60 minutes this Saturday. The over/under is 53 in that game; I expect Florida will score more than 53.

What about Graham Harrell and Chase Daniel? Alex Smith's cautionary tale is scaring teams off Tebow.

I think that the spread certainly does hurt players at certain positions when it comes to their NFL stock. There isn't enough data yet from the its recent popularity, but there could be an affect there over time.

What I don't understand is why Michigan fans are all that concerned about this anyway. Is Rich Rod going to have to sell the next Matt Barkley on the program? What matters first and foremost is winning games on the college level.

Pryor is a very good football player. He should have went to Michigan. He is playing in the wrong system now. Tressel's offense is holding him back. He is a cheetah pulling a mule's wagon. Pryor is going to the NFL, but will not play Drop Back QB. His skill set is not that of a drop back QB with a smattering of spread. He is a spread QB with a pinch of drop back. The fact that he thinks he is a great drop back QB is quite ridiculous! Tressel probably told him anything to get him to commit. He is talented, but he should play in the right system at the proper position to develop properly.

Tate Forcier is a heady, talented QB that is in the perfect system for him. His development will move along faster than Pryor's. Beside all that Rich Rodriguez is far better coach that The Vest. RR develops his players really well!!

"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield" --Alfred Lord Tennyson/ John Sheridan B5